Alternate Chapters and Various Plot Bunnies
by Rikkudo
Summary: Exactly what the title says.


**This is an alternate version of chapter 4 in my story 'Hands of Time'.**

Hands of Time

Chapter 4: Strange Happenings

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~o0O0o~

Sarutobi Izuru was nothing special. Even as the second son of the clan head, he was never destined for greatness. With an unremarkable face, his only distinguishing features were his large sideburns and deep brown eyes, often found in his clan. He was the kind of person one's eyes would slide right over when looking through a crowd.

When he began his training in the shinobi arts at the tender age of three, he was decidedly average in taijutsu and chakra-control, his shuriken and kunai accuracy was not impressive by any means, and it was discovered that he had weak arms in general. In fact, he couldn't really keep up with the rest of his peers in the spars unless he augmented his upper limbs with chakra, miniscule amounts that his pitiful reserves would allow.

His father had been quite displeased to find that his son was not only merely average in the shinobi arts, but meek as well. Someone could push Izuru around all day and the boy wouldn't say a thing. Such a trait was not exactly desirable to find in a son of the clan-head.

But gods could he run.

Whatever strength he lacked in his arms, he more than made up for with his legs. That, more than anything, made the young shinobi the black sheep of his clan.

Izuru could leave virtually everyone in his clan in the dust. It didn't matter how good he was at fighting if the enemy shinobi were too slow to catch him. There were certain tasks that only the fast and the slippery could undertake. That was why the young Sarutobi joined his clan's ranks as a scout and messenger. That was why he had become a ninja. Not for his skills or his strength, but for his legs.

The Sarutobi had use for those who were fast and hard to catch.

Now that he was thirteen, today was his first mission, and he along with the rest of his platoon had been escorting a noble through the Mōbokyu Mountain Range when they were ambushed by Uchiha. They had all initially tried to fight back and protect their employer, but everything changed with the arrival of Uchiha Madara, the man rivaled only by Hashirama of the Senju.

There was no hope against the true master of those demonic red eyes.

It was then that Izuru's platoon leader told him to run, told him to tell the rest of their clan what happened. If anyone had a chance of making it out alive, it was him. So he ran faster than he had ever run in his life, the world blurring around him as chakra subconsciously coursed through his legs.

He could hear the horrific screams of the dying behind him as men he had known all his life were slaughtered, but he never stopped, despite how much he wanted to. His clan members had trusted him to delver news of their death. Failing the one job they had given him would be like spitting on their graves.

So the boy sprinted Madara himself was at his heels, weaving through trees and leaping over boulders with a desperation that bordered on animalistic, until it happened.

It was the deafening boom that came from the direction of the ambush. It was the staggering wind that followed in wake of the noise. When he turned around to see what had almost made him trip, he was greeted with a towering pillar of continuously shifting golden light—an almost alien power. Even stranger was when the trees around him suddenly started sporting new shoots that rapidly hardened into what anyone could mistake for seasoned branches. The air around him was saturated with life-energy.

'What the hell? Wood-style?' His heart lifted with hope. 'Is Hashirama-dono here? Is he the one making that light?' If the head of the Senju had arrived, then there was a chance that some of his platoon's members had survived. Of course, Izuru wasn't stupid enough to go back and try to find out. With his luck, he'd be crushed as collateral damage in the inevitable bout between Hashirama and Madara.

He stood locked in place for a moment, standing on a high tree branch as he admired the way the light writhed in the sky, like a snake trying to get free of some trap, almost as a signal that its power could not be contained . . . Then he shook his head, breaking the spell—this was going to complicate things. Naoyasu redoubled his speed, intent on reaching his clan compound before nightfall. Something about that pillar didn't look good. If Hashirama-dono had such a spectacular power, surely some other clans would have heard of it by now.

The Sarutobi didn't make it more than few thousand yards in the direction away from the ambush sight when he was momentarily blinded by a golden light. Almost subconsciously, the teenager leaped into the dense canopy above him and hid himself. The instincts to avoid the enemy were so deeply ingrained into his mind and beaten into his body during his time as a messenger and a scout that the boy wasn't even entirely aware when he dove into his shelter in the leaf-laden branches above him.

Far too often, if a shinobi had to stop and think about their course of action, it was already too late. Death never waited for anyone. Izuru's instincts had served him well. When the light cleared, he saw someone—someone in a long golden cloak with spiky golden hair that stood like flames. Naoyasu stiffened when the man looked directly in his direction, slit red eyes flashing dangerously.

It didn't escape Izuru's notice that the trees, which had been slowly but steadily growing with the appearance of the golden pillar of light, had suddenly erupted into a frenzy of activity, reaching for the sky like they were starved for the sun. A quick glance behind him revealed the absence of the strange writhing light—a light the same color as the cloak that this terrifying man wore now.

This man—if he really was a man—exuded a presence beyond anything he had ever felt. It was wild and fierce, like he was a rampaging tiger with an insatiable bloodlust. It was a pressure that threatened to crush him, implanting the subconscious animalistic urge to submit to a superior power that he stood no chance against. Fight or flight meant nothing here.

The poor teen almost wet himself when the man spoke in a baritone voice that rumbled the earth.

"You . . . You're a strange one. I sense no hostility from you, only fear. That is good." The man grinned in a feral manner. "That at least will ensure that you will not try anything rash." Red eyes gleamed in the shade of the forest. "If you want to live, that is."

Izuru's skin turned clammy as the tall man looked up at him from the ground, flashing incredibly long canines. He couldn't help but notice that this golden man had vicious-looking claws as well. A light sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead and his heart was dead-set on galloping out of his chest. Just who was such a man who could inspire more fear than Uchiha Madara himself?

"I feel that I can trust you, if your emotions are anything to go by. Take care of this body until I wake, and I swear that you shall be richly rewarded." The young Sarutobi did a double-take at the man's words, completely confused.

He just stared when all of a sudden, the strange man's eyes lost their brilliant red shine and turned into a deep blue color with the slit pupils changing to a more . . . human circular shape. At the same time, the claws that decorated each finger regressed to relatively harmless nails, and his fangs shrunk back into his jaws until they were no longer bulging in his mouth.

Almost immediately, sapphire eyes rolled up in the back of his head and the golden flame-like cloak vanished as the unknown shinobi crumpled to the ground. Izuru stood there for the longest time, completely at a loss for what to do.

In the end, he leaped down and hoisted the man onto his shoulder. His father would know what to do.

Sarutobi Sasuke always knew what to do.


End file.
